Couple Receive $200,000 Settlement After ‘Pungent’ Indian Food Complaint
Urmi Bhattacheryya & Aditya Prakash
In September 2023, Aditya Prakash, an Indian doctoral student at the University of Colorado Boulder, was reheating palak paneer in a shared departmental microwave when a staff member objected to the food’s “pungent” smell and informed him that items with strong odors were prohibited. What began as a brief exchange escalated into an extended dispute that Prakash and his partner, fellow PhD student Urmi Bhattacharyya, characterized as racialized harassment and institutional retaliation.
Following the incident, Prakash was repeatedly called to meetings with senior faculty members and accused of making staff “feel unsafe.” Bhattacharyya also faced repercussions: she was removed from her teaching assistant assignment and later accused of misconduct after supporting Prakash and referencing the incident in an academic setting. The couple asserted that the department’s kitchen policies disproportionately disadvantaged South Asian students by implicitly discouraging them from heating or opening traditional foods in shared spaces.
Believing they had been unfairly targeted, the couple filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in May 2025—represented by the Tyrone Glover Law Firm—alleging discrimination, retaliation, and the creation of a hostile academic environment. They also reported losing funding, supervisory support, and academic standing, effectively derailing their doctoral progress.
In September 2025, the University of Colorado Boulder agreed to a $200,000 settlement, conferred Master’s degrees on both students, and prohibited them from future enrollment or employment at the institution, while formally denying any wrongdoing. Prakash and Bhattacharyya subsequently left the United States, and their case drew significant public attention as a prominent example of discrimination related to cultural food practices, often referred to in media coverage as “food racism.”
Click here to read the full article: independent.co.uk
